


The Princess in the Hallway

by samariumwriting



Series: Trans Claude AU [8]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Family, Family Fluff, Family Reunions, Father-Son Relationship, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Post-Canon, Spoilers, Trans Claude von Riegan, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 18:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20625641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: It's been a long time, but finally, after all those years, Claude goes home. He's a very different person, compared to the boy who left ten years before.





	The Princess in the Hallway

**Author's Note:**

> This has spoilers for Claude's ending, but that's basically it. Enjoy :D

He supposes it's an odd thing to notice, but the first thing he sees when he reaches the palace is that the painting is gone. It used to be right there, pride of place in the entrance hall; all the kings did it. When the heir turned twelve, they did a family portrait. It was meant to capture youth, future prosperity, and remind the eventual ruler where they came from. 

Claude remembered loathing the painting for one simple reason: he'd been dressed up in all the silks with his hair braided down his back and he hadn't looked like himself. Despite all the flack he gave his parents sometimes when he was describing them to his friends back in Fódlan, they'd let him do his own thing. That meant they let him present in his own way, and that meant that when he was dressed up in the very best for the Amyran princess, he didn't look like himself.

And yet, the painting was gone. Maybe it had been removed when he disappeared, and not replaced when he confirmed to them through a letter that he was, in fact, alive. Maybe they were waiting until he actually returned, or maybe they'd disinherited him at some point and they were waiting for a good moment to put it back. He didn't know, but he felt like it boded well despite the possibilities.

He hadn't informed them of exactly when he'd be back on purpose. Just another one of his little tricks, he told them. Nothing in any way out of the ordinary for him. Never mind that he'd been so busy wrapping everything up in the Alliance (or just Fódlan now, he supposed) that he really wasn't sure when he'd make it back. That wasn't important at all. 

There was also the issue that he was nervous. He hadn't seen his parents in a long, long time, and he...he knew they would welcome him back with open arms. There was no reason they wouldn't. But a lot had changed and sometimes he had a hard time processing that himself, let alone asking someone else to explain his transformation from a decidedly scrappy young fourteen year old to the dashing young man of- oh shit, it had been a decade. Skies above, he was a bad son.

He'd made it this far, though, with the lie that he was a messenger carrying a letter from Claude direct to the king and queen. He'd have to tell someone to up their security, because it shouldn't have been that easy to bluff his way in to what was meant to be one of the safest places in the whole of Almyra. All they'd done was check the seal on the letter to verify that it was from him, and they'd let him through. Absolutely stupid, especially seeing as he'd said he'd be visiting soon. Why would he send a letter now?

He knew his way around the hallways like anything; he was almost tempted to see how long he could make a nuisance of himself before someone intervened, just like he did back in the old days when the only person who’d tell him off was his mother once he'd been caught.

But he knew that if he did that, he'd just be putting it off even more. And, good as he was with ignoring his own feelings, he knew it had to end at some point. He had to face up to the mistakes he'd made when he ran away and properly mend his relationships back home.

If nothing else, he did miss his parents. As much as he didn't want to admit it.

So, knowing that his father would probably be busy with his usual king things, he asked the next staff member he came across where he would find the queen at this hour. On seeing the letter he carried in his hands, the servant was practically stumbling over herself to direct him to the correct place (information Claude would have to remember, even though he probably shouldn't be thinking up bargaining chips over his own parents, especially when the subject was their concern for his well being. Still, it was nice to note).

His mother was in the gardens. She hadn't been one for flowers when he was younger, though she did have her own section of the garden. Claude remembered spending a lot of time taking plant cuttings, comparing them to the huge book of plants in the library, seeing which ones could be useful for something and which ones were just there because they were pretty (very few, because his mother was an endlessly practical person). But what his mother had always done in the gardens was read poetry. She'd always loved that, and it almost felt like a surprise that she was still doing the same thing in her free time, all these years later. Maybe he would have been more surprised if she'd been doing something else.

He didn’t remember the correct conduct for greeting a queen, if he'd ever known it in the first place, but he bowed before approaching her. "A letter, your highness," he said. It might be fun to keep up he joke. It would make a good tale to tell back to his friends in Fódlan.

She thanked him for the letter, fixing him with quite the look. Would she recognise him? His face had lengthened, sharpened, his hair was shorter, he had a beard - maybe it would take her a little longer. He turned to leave with another bow, to give her the privacy to read the letter (which would merely inform her that he had arrived). "Wait," she said. It took quite the amount of willpower not to smile brightly, just hearing her voice again. Seeing her, barely even changed all that much by the year (a little greyer round the temples, more lines in her face, but still the same).

There was a beat. They looked each other directly in the eyes for the first time. "Claude," she said. For the first time. He'd never heard her speak his name before. He'd seen it written in her handwriting countless times over the past two years (well, just over fifty times - he still had every letter), but never heard it aloud. "Come here, you rascal."

She opened her arms and he practically fell forwards (not that he would admit it to anyone. He would never hear the end of it from Lorenz, for one). "I missed you," he said. Her arms were wrapped around him. He wasn't taller than her now and he doubted he ever would be (curse his father for being short), but he nearly came up to the top of her head. Nearly.

“I missed you as well,” she said. She pulled away, holding his shoulders at arm’s length and looking him up and down. “You’ve grown. In more ways than one. It’s been so long since I saw you last, when you were all bony limbs and frustration.”

He laughed. Thinking back on it, that was pretty accurate. “I do like to think I’ve matured a little since then.”

“Matured is one word for it,” she said. “What was your phrasing again? ‘I’ve been a bit busy lately, I just killed a thousand year old warrior. Will write more soon.’ I think that about covers the mature side of things.”

Claude just smiled. He was almost at a loss of things to say. He’d planned these conversations in his head over and over when he was a child, and then in the subsequent years, but recently he’d stopped doing that. “There’s so much to say, but I can’t think of anything at all,” he admitted. “So can I settle for saying again that I missed you?”

“Of course,” she said. He’d missed seeing that smile on her face. He’d missed seeing her, sharing things with her. He’d been able to talk with her in a way when writing to her, but it wasn’t the same. He’d been so close to her when he was young.

He hoped they could be like that again, now he’d seen the world he’d been fascinated with every time he heard her stories of her childhood home. He’d lived in her home, read in her bedroom. Eaten at the table she had eaten at when she was a child. He’d attended the same school, shared a meal with her father, even met the knight she used to sing the praises of in the stories she told him when he was little.

“Don’t tell me you’ve stopped being chatty now you’ve grown up,” she said with a laugh.

“No, don’t worry,” he replied. “I think I’m just pretty tired. I only got into the city this morning. That, and I don’t know where to start. If I do start, I might not stop until you’re begging me to shut up.”

“Never,” she said, her voice firm. Claude was hit with another wave of affection. He hadn’t quite realised just how much he’d missed her when he was gone. How much he’d regretted not having said goodbye properly. “Say all you want. Though before we start, maybe there’s someone else who should know you’re back?”

Claude smiled sheepishly. “Maybe,” he said. This was the conversation he’d planned over and over and over until he could hear every word in his head. His mother had always loved him in a way, even when she couldn’t understand why he hated the way he looked or the way people spoke to him.

His father had not been quite so understanding. He had always held on to tradition, always wanted Claude to be more than he was. A better princess. Claude couldn’t bring himself to blame him, exactly, because his father just hadn’t understood. He wanted safety and a scrap of normality for his child, not realising the reason Claude resisted that so heavily. It had made the rift between them much deeper than necessary, but it was what it was. Their relationship hadn’t been like that anymore, at least not in letters, but he was still...nervous, he supposed.

“One thing first,” he said. It was silly and could even be trivial (though it didn’t feel trivial. Every single meaning he could think of was anything but trivial), but he had to ask. “Why is the painting in the hallway gone?”

“The painting…?” For a moment, his mother looked confused. “Oh, that’s been gone for years, I’m not even sure we still have it,” she said. “Ask your father about it.” With that, she started walking in the direction Claude knew to be his father’s private office. It wasn’t really an answer, but it was half of one.

If the painting no longer mattered, what of him? What of the child who had grown up in this palace? For months or years his parents must have presumed him dead, but he barely thought about it at the time (a lie, even to himself; he’d replayed the fabricated scenes in his mind over and over, trying to imagine his father’s face twisted in grief and worry even as the details of his face faded with time and new experiences). Had Almyra moved on without him?

They walked the familiar paths and staircases up to his father’s office. This place had always been something Claude associated with having done something wrong. It was somewhere he was never meant to go, because his father was a busy man and didn’t have time for his interruptions, rambling about his latest discovery.

But his mother knocked on the wooden door and called “Arash! You have a visitor.” Claude shot her a look, and she smiled back at him, making her way back towards the stairs. She wanted him to do this on his own.

“Come in!” the voice replied. He sounded the same as he always had. Claude threw away the caution he was clinging to and opened the door. His father was sitting at his desk, the same desk, a little older and greyer than before, but he looked the same. His gaze didn’t soften as he observed Claude.

Claude felt his confidence stutter, briefly, and he ducked into a shallow bow. “Your Majesty,” he said. He paused. His father was staring at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak. “Father.”

Surprise flashed across his father’s face for a moment before he stood from his chair. Quietly pleased, Claude noted that he was a tiny bit taller than his father now. “So you really did decide to come back,” he said, crossing the room and immediately wrapping his arms around Claude. Yep. Not much had changed. His dad’s hug could definitely still suffocate a grown man.

“I’m a man of my word,” he said, a smile inching onto his face when his father’s grip squeezed tighter. “I always wanted to come back.” As much as he’d wished he could discard his feelings entirely to focus on Fódlan, Almyra had always been his home. If he was being honest, he was always going to come back. No matter what had happened across the mountains.

“I’m so happy to hear you say that,” his father said, and Claude could hear the smile in his voice even if he couldn’t see it, “my son. Claude.”

Claude tried his best not to tear up on hearing his words, but it was difficult. More difficult than he wanted to admit. These little things still meant the world to him, even after all these years. “Can I ask what happened to the portrait in the hall?” he asked. Maybe it would ruin the moment, but he had to know.

His father pulled away and stepped backwards. “I took it down when we got your first letter,” he said. “I don’t remember exactly why. A feeling that you wouldn’t be coming back, for one. But also the knowledge that you would hate it if you did. It’s been gone for years.”

“Well, the princess in the picture never did come back,” he said with a small smile. That was enough information about that for now. At some point, he needed to have a real discussion with his father about this. The one he should have had over a decade ago.

“The princess in the picture never really existed, I don’t think,” his father replied. “Not that it matters, now the prince has returned.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :) if you enjoyed, please consider checking out the other works in this series and/or my twitter @samariumwriting.
> 
> ALSO I borrowed a couple headcanons from @kyleenim (also on twitter, kynimdraws on tumblr) with regards to the depiction of Claude's parents. She has lots of great Claude content so you should check her work out!


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